do that now, president obama said, and he and congress can work out the details of spending cuts later. ( applause ) before a crowd of supporters, the white house invited from the mid-atlantic region, president obama put congressional republicans on notice. >> it's too important for washington to screw this up. now is the time for us to work on what we all agreed to, which is lets keep middle class taxes low. that's what our economy needs. that's what the american people deserve. gd if we get this part of it right, then a lot of the other issues surrounding deficit reduction in a fair and balanced, responsible way are going to be a whole lot easier. >> reporter: white house officials say mr. obama is not interested in personally meeting with congressional republicans because those meetings did little to resolve the 2010 debt ceiling crisis. but when mr. obama later skipped congressional meetings and campaigned to extend the 2% payroll tax cut and maintain lower student loan interest rates, he won. the president is primarily focused on step one of this process-- winning the middle class